Archive

Monthly Archives: June 2017

In spring 2017, alumna Claire Blaylock participated in NextGen 2017, an executive education program for museum leaders offered by the Getty Leadership Institute at Claremont Graduate University. We asked her to share her thoughts.

This past March I had the pleasure of participating in the Getty Leadership Institute at Claremont Graduate University. With an eye towards emerging trends in the museum field, I was excited to spend an intensive month interacting with my peers from around the globe and learning from top notch faculty.

Basically, I got to go back to graduate school, but without final papers, late nights in a library, or the questionable contents of the student lounge fridge.

As the director of a small museum and historical society, I immediately felt a little like a fish out of water. I had the smallest budget of all the participating institutions, but I quickly learned that my small museum experience actually gave me a leg up since I am involved in literally every aspect of running the institution. In fact, my colleagues from some of the most prestigious institutions in the world expressed genuine admiration for how we (small museums) manage to accomplish so much with few resources.

Regardless of institution size, we were brought together to dissect the field from all angles and address as a group the challenges we ALL face – funding, organizational development, audience engagement, basic management skills, and how technology is playing a more active role in our field.

Taking a page from traditional business school curriculum, we worked our way through market assessments of our institutions. We learned the basics of business strategy and analysis. We read management analysis of large corporations like Microsoft! Much to my surprise, these types of readings really resonated with me. It provided a framework to start thinking about how my organization can take steps toward greater long-term stability. I frequently find myself going back to these texts on a weekly basis to help guide me in my current role. For example, I have started to lead my staff in creating a basic market analysis of the heritage sites in our community. What are the programs and experiences already being offered? Where do we fit in this market? Is there a niche that we can address and better set ourselves apart from the ‘competition?’ This exercise has been illuminating for our organization and has helped guide us toward new programs and curriculum.

How can we guide our institutions forward with this in mind? One way is to start approaching our field like business people. Institutions from small (local historical societies) to large (The Metropolitan Museum of Art) are concerned with long term stability and the solutions to these concerns need to come from our generation of leaders. Think outside the box and look to other fields for answers. What organizations are successful? Why are they successful? Can you mirror any of their same techniques for success? These types of questions may yield surprising but illuminating results!

Want an easy place to start? Does your organization have a business plan or a strategic plan? If not, then it is time to develop a guiding document! One of the best examples of such a document is the Chicago History Museum Visioning Document. This has inspired organizations large and small to take a more holistic approach to organizational development. It should be required reading for everyone involved in historic institutions.

To the shock of no one, my Next Gen classmates and I came to the conclusion that collections, museums, and organizations can no longer afford to exist as the bastions of antiquarians and enthusiasts – we need have clearly articulated and BOLD vision, missions, and purposes. But just as importantly, we as museum leaders need to be driven by bold vision missions and purposes. The Getty Leadership Institute empowered me to be a stronger leader by giving me access to a whole new tool box of skills. These skills will allow me to take important next steps for my career and the future health of the historic institutions in my community.